Larry’s Comments (group member since Nov 23, 2020)

Larry’s comments from the Nonfiction Reading - Only the Best group.

Carol, I do like this poem a lot. But this: "Cakm in his cradle
The living lies." Is "Cakm" a misprint?

Perhaps, "Calm"?

Cindy, Jonathan Spence is an expert's expert when it comes to China. I first encountered his work more than 30 years ago, when a friend lent me his The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci. I didn't know about The Search For Modern China, but I will look fo rit.

John wrote: "Larry, I am pleased to report that I am signed up the Scribd. I look forward to reading options that might not be available on Nook or Kindle."

I wander a lot on Scribd ... looking at one book will result in it recommending other books. Sort of like wandering around the stacks in a library.

No one ever accused Anthony Hecht of being the master of the short poem ... but he was indeed a master of poetry. His poems, put simply, are classic.

DOUBLE SONNET

I recall everything, but more than all,
Words being nothing now, an ease that ever
Remembers her to my unfailing fever,
How she came forward to me, letting fall
Lamplight upon her dress till every small
Motion made visible seemed no mere endeavor
Of body to articulate its offer,
But more a grace won by the way from all
Striving in what is difficult, from all
Losses, so that she moved but to discover
A practice of the blood, as the gulls hover,
Winged with their life, above the harbor wall,
Tracing inflected silence in the tall
Air with a tilt of mastery and quiver
Against the light, as the light fell to favor
Her coming forth; this chiefly I recall.

It is a part of pride, guiding the hand
At the piano in the splash and passage
Of sacred dolphins, making numbers human
By sheer extravagance that can command
Pythagorean heavens to spell their message
Of some unlooked-for peace, out of the common;
Taking no thought at all that man and woman,
Lost in the trance of lamplight, felt the presage
Of the unbidden terror and bone hand
Of gracelessness, and the unspoken omen
That yet shall render all, by its first usage,
Speechless, inept, and totally unmanned.

Hecht, Anthony. Selected Poems (Borzoi Poetry) (p. 3). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

John wrote: "A.R. Ammons was a master of the short poem. I can recommend a book of his that gathers them together: The Really Short Poems.

AFTER YESTERDAY

After yesterday
afternoon's blue
clouds..."

Short poems can be more difficult to do well.

Sher wrote: "This poem is one of few I could find online to share with you. The poet is Jane Clarke my current favorite poet. SHe's Irish, and this one comes from her first collection, which I have. She writes ..."

I like it from the very first line, Sher. Who owns the field, indeed?

So simple and so evocative at the same time, Carol. We just got back from a week at the beach (Rehoboth, Delaware) and that poem makes me feel the heat that we experienced there ... heat that really was not too hot but just right.

Thanks to Sher and all for a most stimulating experience. I never mentioned it as we read along, but when I was in Australia I had a clerk, Audrey, whose father had gone to Russia from England following his brother, who had established a major enterprise of supplying horses for the Russian cavalry. While there, her father acquired eight villages and all the serfs associated with the villages. I truly find it incomprehensible to own people, regardless of the institution associated with such ownership. Things went south as the Revolution came and Audrey's father went east with some of the White army, picking up and marrying a minor Russian princess (there were actually a lot of those) along the way ... eventually making his escape from Vladivostok. Russian society--then and now--is too complicated for me to have more than a glimmering of understanding of it.

Carol wrote: "England lost to Italy in the European Football Final yesterday evening. Unfortunately, the three black players taking the penalty shootout to decide the score have now been racially abused on socia..."

Carol, I read about the abuse in the Guardian. So sad.

John wrote: "I have been thinking about possibly pursuing a Master’s Degree in English. I am rather rusty, as it has been nearly 40 years since I have taken a class on anything.

The graduate programs through through the University of North Carolina system seem excellent, and I could do this on line. I would receive the North Carolina resident rate. I don’t have plans to use it for anything. Just something to achieve.

One program is through Western Carolina University. Although online for me, I must say what a beautiful campus...."

The English Departments of the separate universities of the Consolidated UNC system are quite strong. The premier department is certainly UNC-Chapel Hill (usually in the top ten English Departments in the nation), but the other schools have some great professors. I spent eight years at NC State, and picked up three degrees in Economics, but the best teacher I had in those eight years was one in the English Department there. I took his courses on the second semester of English Lit and on Shakespeare. it was a shame that he became the Dean of the school of Liberal Arts and stopped teaching.

As for returning to formal classes after many years away, take a look at David Denby's Great Books: My Adventures with Homer, Rousseau, Woolf, and Other Indestructible Writers of the Western World. It's great fun but deeply serious and even moving.

The following is the Amazon blurb: "At the age of forty-eight, writer and film critic David Denby returned to Columbia University and re-enrolled in two core courses in Western civilization to confront the literary and philosophical masterpieces -- the "great books" -- that are now at the heart of the culture wars. In Great Books, he leads us on a glorious tour, a rediscovery and celebration of such authors as Homer and Boccaccio, Locke and Nietzsche. Conrad and Woolf. The resulting personal odyssey is an engaging blend of self-discovery, cultural commentary, reporting, criticism, and autobiography -- an inspiration for anyone in love with the written word."

John, it's available for free on Scribd!

Jerome wrote: "I liked the story. I ... I was really surprised by Saunders' take on the story and his desire for the character to have his reaction to abuse and exploitation, as opposed to the purity of the response of Alyohsha..."

I enjoyed the story also ... and I agree with others that there are several ways of interpreting it. I opt for the simpler explanation of Alyosha experiencing a mystical experience right before he died. I was with my father-in-law as he died. He had had Alzheimer's for about ten years before he died, and in the moments of his dying a veil seemed to lift for him and he seemed to experience and even project the experience of joy. But I have been with others who have died and they just slipped away.

"the admiration of beauty can be fount for happiness." That's an innocent answer but I really think it's the right one, also.

I enjoyed Gooseberries as well.

I've been thinking about each one of these stories as a result of simultaneously reading The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age by Sven Birkerts. The book is very good in places, actually in most places, but is a real mix of autobiographical material and essays. Birekets starts form the beginning with teaching a course, in which one class centered in Henry James's "Brooksmith." And the class was sort of a disaster in that none of his students really had any "energy" for reading this work. The point he eventually makes is that serious reading requires some effort and some experience with serious reading. It gets easier if you do more of it. But even then, when we were reading the previous work, "The Nose" I felt the same ennui that he described his students being afflicted with. And then about 100 pages into the book, in chapter 4, Birkerts describes the state that serious reading can lead you into when it's a book or work that you enjoy ... almost a meditative state where you may remember the experience more than the actual words of a work themselves. It's not like this often, but it is sometimes. And it is the feeling of joy that I remember from reading Gooseberries more than most of the words.

One question? Why the focus on the pulchritude of the chambermaid???

You don't read this poem ... you watch and listen ... Litany by Billy Collins recited by a three year old.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVu4M...

John, just to clarify ... it's Scribd. Here's a link: https://www.scribd.com/

Larry

John wrote: "You've reminded me of an outstanding series hosted by Robert Hughes years ago on American history through art. I saw it on library VHS tapes(!); last I checked it was not available via DVD or downl..."


John, I think that that is his AMERICAN VISIONS series. Six of the eight episodes can be streamed on the YouTube Premium service.

John et al.,

I think I've mentioned it before but many books like Ted Hughes' Crow: From the Life and Songs of the Crow can be found on Scribd, the subscription service for ebooks that bills itself as the Netflix for Books.

I totally recommend Scribd ... and keep on discovering new good things like free access to the MUBI movie streaming service and the CURIOSITYSTREAM documentary streaming service.

John wrote: "An interesting Ted Hughes poem I came across. I saw a picture today of his daughter Frieda. She looks just like her mother, Sylvia Plath.

CAT AND MOUSE

On the sheep-cropped summit, under hot sun,..."

John,

Thanks so much for sharing this one, I've never read Ted Hughes's poems.

Larry

Carol wrote: "As a complement to your books in the Chemistry section here is Tom Lehrer's wonderful song 'The Elements'. ( of which I still have the very ancient record!)

There's antimony, arsenic, aluminium, s..."

Carol, many thanks for this memory ... I have eight of his albums ... and found it on the first one I looked at, GHOULISH!

The wit of Tom Lehrer has given way these days all too often to snark of modern performers, who mistake their snark for wit. Oh the times!

And then a step up, there is this book on molecules, Molecules at an Exhibition: Portraits of Intriguing Materials in Everyday Life. John Emsley write this one and the one on elements that I mentioned above.